Celiac Challenges

Yesterday’s piece in the New York Times about dining out with gluten intolerance or celiac disease hit close to home. My daughter has celiac, and believe me, eating out can be a challenge. No Chinese restaurants–who knows if the soy sauce has gluten? No French restaurants–like many celiacs she’s got a milk allergy and French cuisine is too dairy dependent.

She’s developed the ability to quiz the waiter about what’s in a dish without being obnoxious. And with all the ice cream, pasta and bread substitutes on the market these days, being a celiac sufferer isn’t quite the ordeal it once was. I too was plagued with the disease but only until the age of three. My mother still tells the story of how I would run after the Good Humor truck with the pack of neighborhood kids, and being the well-trained tyke that I was, come to a screeching halt few feet in front of the ice cream purveyor, where I stoically would watch my little buddies downing ice cream bars and other forbidden treats.

But back to the challenge of eating out. These days, I deal with a serious allergy to dairy products. Servers, even in high-end restaurants, can be alarmingly uninformed and once you leave the big cities the situation can turn positively comical, if the consequences weren’t so dire. Here’s an exchange I’ve gone through many times.

Me: Does it contain dairy?
Server: There’s no mayonnaise.
Me: Mayo comes from eggs. Does it have cream or milk or anything that comes from a cow?
Server: Can you eat mayo?
Me: Mayo comes from chicken eggs. I’m worried about milk and other things that come from cows.
Server: Ok, I’ll tell the kitchen to leave out the mayo.
Me: Just bring me a green salad, no dressing

Related posts:

1. Baking with Celiac Disease
2. North Fork, LI: Magic Fountain’s Divine Rum Raisin Ice Cream